Active sensor in missiles

[muraug (OP)]

Hello.  Thinking in how I could make more stealth a ship, I know that:

"A successful missile system contains three components that need to work together:

   1 a Missile
   2 at least one Active Sensor that can see the target.  The sensor doesn't have to be on the firing ship, not even in the same Task Group.  If the missiles don't have sensors of their own, one Active Sensor needs to see the target continuously until missile impact.
    3 at least one Fire Control directing the missile to the target.  This has to be on the firing ship".

This Active Sensor will be in another missile? Example: if I have a missile with an active sensor, I launch it from a ship (which have active sensor off), the missile find a target and runs to it. . .  Can I launch more missiles from a ship using the missile active sensor? If this is possible, I can attack all ships that active sensor can see, or I only can attack the missile active sensor target?

If that work, ship`s active sensor can be off, and its position will be harder to know, isn`t it?

[xenoscepter]

EDIT: This is a machine translated Spanish version of this post, using Google Translate. I don't speak Spanish... 

Off-Topic: show

No sé si otros misiles pueden usar el sensor activo de un misil para adquirir un objetivo, pero sospecho firmemente que la respuesta a esa pregunta es sí.

Para disparar sigilosamente, necesitas sensores pasivos para "encontrar" un objetivo. Un Control de fuego de misiles para disparar al objetivo, tenga en cuenta que NO necesita un Control de fuego de misiles para disparar un misil en un punto de referencia, por lo que puede lanzar la sonda del sensor activo sin uno, pero cualquier misil disparado sin un Control de fuego de misiles no puedo, repito, NO PUEDE lograr un bloqueo objetivo.

También podría usar una observación directa con sensores activos para detectar objetivos, pero estoy divagando.

Los misiles de varias etapas con un sensor en la primera etapa permitirán la creación de misiles en racimo. Suponiendo un rango de separación de 0 km y que el misil en cuestión fue disparado desde una nave con un Control de Fuego de Misiles, ese misil LOGRARÁ el bloqueo del objetivo y lo golpeará asumiendo que el objetivo no tiene PD y no se está moviendo. Hablando mecánicamente, puedes usar los sensores activos de una etapa de misiles para apuntar a su segunda etapa. He probado esto y puedo confirmar que funciona.

Por lo tanto, es lógico que los misiles disparados desde otras naves, suponiendo que las naves en cuestión tengan un Control de Fuego de Misiles, también puedan usar el Sensor Activo de otra nave y / o misil para lograr el bloqueo del objetivo.

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I do not know if other missiles can use the active sensor of a missile to acquire a target, but I strongly suspect the answer to that question is yes.

To do stealth firing, you need Passive Sensors to "find" a target. A Missile Fire Control to shoot at the target, keep in mind that you do NOT need a Missile Fire Control to fire a missile at a waypoint, so you can launch the active sensor probe without one, but any missile fired without a Missile Fire Control cannot, I repeat, CANNOT achieve a target lock.

You could also use a Forward Observe with Active Sensors for spotting targets, but I digress.

Multi-Stage missiles w/ a sensor in the 1st stage will allow the creation of cluster missiles. Assuming a 0 km separation range and that the missile in question was fired from a ship with a Missile Fire Control, that missile WILL achieve target lock and WILL hit the target assuming the target has no PD and is not moving. So mechanically speaking, you can use the Active Sensors of a missile stage to target for it's second stage. I've tested this and can confirm it works.

It stands to reason therefore that missiles fired from other ships, assuming that the ships in question have a Missile Fire Control, would also be able to use the Active Sensor of another ship and / or missile to achieve target lock.

For your inspiration, here are links to some of my designs that use stealth firing:

Off-Topic: show

Titan Atlas and Titan Regalia ====> http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10358.0

Apophis-Class and Support Ships ====> http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10482.0

Predator-Class and Predator II-Class Strategic Bombers ====> http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10521.0

[Jorgen_CAB]

Against the AI then using sensor probes light up a target might work but those probes will be relatively easy to shoot down by a more intelligent opponent. In Aurora VB6 the sensor range of small probes are extremely weak as they scale linear.

But you can use an active sensor probe to paint a target in the same way you can use a dedicated scout to paint a target.

In Aurora VB6 you are probably much better of with several tiny little scouts to paint the targets that can move around. In Aurora C# small sensors will be way more powerful so such a tactic will probably be allot more viable in general, using both active and passive probes will probably be allot more effective for that purpose.

If my math is right a Sensor strength 21, sensitivity 11 probe (resolution 100) with 5 MSP (0.25 HS) active sensor would reach about 20m km while a size 50 resolution 1 sensor could light up the sensor at roughly 6-7m km.

The same sensor in VB6 would reach about 5.5m km and could be detected with a size 15 resolution active scanner.

But you can of course fire several active probes in intervals so shooting them all down is difficult to do.

But in C# Aurora you could probably do quite decent active missiles that homes in on their prey on their own with quite decent ranges or use fire and forget missiles at waypoints. A size 12 missile can have a decent active sensor and a few smaller missiles that deploy at about 5-10m range from the target. Using way-points at those distances should be feasible if you know the rough course and speed of the enemy vessels and they don't suspect the attack.

[muraug (OP)]

Thanks for your anwers (especially your Spanish's try  ).  This weekend, when my lovely children bring me a brake, I will tray to desing a missile and a little scout, and compare each (the mineral cost may be a factor too).

[Michael Sandy]

As far as I know, missiles can retarget using any onboard sensors.  Any sensor.  So a missile with an EM sensor, if it detects a hostile EM source within range when it can't find its primary target will retarget on that EM source.

So if you are launching a MASSIVE volley in order to get through AMM point defense, and don't want to overkill, you have missiles which will be able to retarget after the primary target is obliterated.  And that requires missiles that can detect the enemy ships at 5 second flight time.

Mines, that is, long endurance multistage missiles need to have somewhat longer ranged sensors, to cover the estimate jump region around a jump point, +movement.

An important difference is that the mine can have the sensor on the 1st stage, and missiles that retarget need to have the sensor on the final stage.

There are several ways to use homing missiles:

Fire at a waypoint associated with a body.  You can also do time on target so all the first stages arrive at the separation distance at the same time, so the 2nd stage homing missiles all arrive at the waypoint at the same time.

You can fire them conventionally in a large volley, so that you don't have wasted missiles.  A minor nuisance is that you can't fire to cripple for the purpose of boarding with that kind of armament.

You can fire homing missiles offensively in a jump assault.  You can build 'fighters' that are literally nothing but a single box launcher.  No fire control.  You order them to standard (not squadron) transit, and launch missiles.  The homing missiles then take out anything sitting on top of the jump point, allowing the rest of the fleet to transit normally, without enemy beam ships sitting on top of them.  That buys time for their systems to stabilize and fight a normal fight.

At high tech, the missiles are more expensive than the missile pod is.  And because there are no real tech dependent systems, the missile pods never really go obsolete.  The main cost for them is storing and transporting them.

[Garfunkel]

So you put a Jump Tender on the JP, then form a TG with nothing but the "missile pods", order it to do a Standard Transit, advance time by 5 sec.

Once they are on the other side, you create a Way Point at their location, order all "missiles pods" to fire on that Way Point, advance time by 5 sec.

Missiles pop out, their sensors activate, hopefully target the defenders and they go boom. Might need another 5 sec time increment between missiles popping out and defenders going boom.

That's a pretty clever idea and basically Starfire SBMHAWK in Aurora.

[DIT_grue]

I thought I remembered things like launching missiles (and maybe also fighters leaving hangars) to be disallowed by transit delays, precisely to prevent this sort of thing?

[Michael Sandy]

You can't aim missiles while under jump shock.  But you can still launch them.  I don't know if the onboard sensors of the missiles themselves are affected by jump shock.

[Father Tim]

I sincerely doubt it, though C# Aurora may have fixed this.  Parasites weren't affected by jump disruption, and in earlier versions launching parasites was also not affected, so carriers were king of jump point assaults.